March 1, 2002

Anthrax Expert Faces Fine for Burning Infected Carcasses

By WILLIAM J. BROAD

he veterinarian who discovered the Ames strain of anthrax is being fined by the State of Texas for burning carcasses infected with anthrax and other diseases — the only safe method, he says, to get rid of the health danger.

Public health officials have struggled for decades to dispose of dead infected animals in a way that protects nearby human populations from accidental exposure and death.

The World Health Organization says the preferred method is carcass burning, whether in pits, with flame guns, on the open ground or in commercial incinerators. High temperatures, the agency stipulates, are the best way to make sure that all anthrax spores are destroyed.

But the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission last year proposed fining the veterinarian, Michael L. Vickers, $9,000 for burning infected carcasses in a pit behind his office, Las Palmas Veterinary Hospital, on Highway 281 a mile outside Falfurrias, Tex.

On Tuesday, Dr. Vickers drove his truck to Austin to fight the fine before an administrative judge hearing cases of the conservation commission. The agency, he said in a telephone interview, is more interested in promoting air quality than in safeguarding against anthrax, a bacteria with deadly spores that can live for decades underground and could in theory be collected by terrorists for lethal assaults.

In 1981, Dr. Vickers isolated from a dead cow the strain of anthrax that eventually came to be known as Ames, the type used in letter attacks that killed five people last fall. Recently identified as its discoverer, he is using his celebrity to campaign for fewer restraints on carcass burning.

"I'm the only one they ever came down on," Dr. Vickers said of the commission. "They see smoke and come running. I'm making a stand for my colleagues across the state."

But the commission maintains that Dr. Vickers broke the state law when he burned the carcasses over the last few years and must pay the fine. Until this year, veterinarians in Texas were permitted to burn infected cattle only in commercial incinerators, not open pits. The law otherwise states that the diseased bodies must go into landfills.

Dr. Vickers, railing at what he calls "tree huggers" in state government, argues that infected carcasses in landfills are time bombs waiting to go off. "Some kid is going to dig it up and die," he said. "They don't think about that. They don't have any common sense."

About 20 counties in Texas have had outbreaks of anthrax in animals in the last few years, with attendant human cases. Last year, a ranch hand who skinned a buffalo fell ill but survived after nine days of hospitalization.

Dr. Vickers began his campaign last year and won a round when the Texas Legislature passed a measure, now a law, that says veterinarians in counties with 10,000 residents or fewer can burn diseased carcasses. That frees him to burn near Falfurrias, which is in Brooks County near the Rio Grande. But Dr. Vickers is still on a crusade to free veterinarians in populous counties, as well.

No commercial incinerators are available in Texas for large-animal veterinarians, he said, and if they existed, shipping infected carcasses there would entail hauling them long distances over public roads, creating health dangers.

"He does have a good point," Adria Dawidczik, spokeswoman for the commission, said of the incineration problems.

As for Dr. Vickers's case, Mrs. Dawidczik said, even though he can legally burn carcasses now, he still has his earlier violations, which began with a neighbor's complaints.

The two-day hearing in Austin ended yesterday. "We just laid out the facts," Dr. Vickers said, expressing confidence in his case. Bothering a neighbor with occasional smoke, he added, was a small price for disposing of pathogens that could endanger the lives of millions of people.

Mrs. Dawidczik said the judge would make his recommendation soon. But she added that the ultimate decision would fall to the full commission, which is expected to meet on this issue in July.

Martin E. Hugh-Jones, an anthrax expert at Louisiana State University who helped the World Health Organization draft its disposal guidelines, said Dr. Vickers was clearly in the right.

"We firmly recommend that animals are incinerated," Dr. Hugh- Jones said in an interview. "They should be buried only if they cannot be disposed of in any other way."

He added that diseased animals in landfills were fast becoming a terrorism issue, as they tended to be near towns and more accessible to malcontents. "That," he said, "is a real danger."